Cash walks the line of scru­tiny

OP­PO­SI­TION em­ploy­ment spokesman Bren­dan O’Con­nor con­tin­ues to press the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment for its prior knowl­edge of wrong­do­ings of the for­mer Aus­tralian and Build­ing Con­struc­tion Com­mis­sion head.

Nigel Hadgkiss stepped down as the com­mis­sion’s chief last week af­ter he ad­mit­ted to breach­ing the Fair Work Act.

La­bor says it is “quite re­mark­able” Em­ploy­ment Min­is­ter Michaelia Cash wasn’t aware of the ex­tent of the wrong­do­ings of the head of the Gov­ern­ment’s build­ing and con­struc­tion watch­dog be­fore he re­signed.

“The ABCC was cre­ated in De­cem­ber last year and Mr Hadgkiss was ap­pointed as reg­u­la­tor of the ABCC even though le­gal pro­ceed­ings of a se­ri­ous na­ture were on foot about his con­duct,” Mr O’Con­nor told Sky News yes­ter­day.

Sen­a­tor Cash told Par­lia­ment last week that she had known about the mat­ter since Oc­to­ber 2016, but de­nied that it meant she knew of the breach un­til Mr Hadgkiss re­signed.

In court doc­u­ments, Mr Hadgkiss ad­mit­ted that in De­cem­ber 2013 he di­rected La­bor gov­ern­ment changes to right-of-en­try laws – which were due to come into ef­fect in Jan­uary 2014 – not be pub­lished by the Fair Work agency which he headed at the time.